![]() Losing a long-standing leader brings a host of unique challenges that many organizations are unprepared to face. When a long-term nonprofit leader leaves that person is typically beloved by the staff, creating a hole emotionally as well as functionally. Sometimes this person is the original founder, other times they aren’t but they’ve been in the role for the organization’s most formative years. Regardless of whether they were there at the very beginning or not, they are someone who has been at the helm though significant periods of growth. As a result, they have imbued institutional knowledge that must be retained by the organization and passed onto the next leader. When a leader’s era is over it’s important to recognize the challenges that lay ahead, understand where opportunities for growth may exist, and craft a formal transition plan to guide the organization through the change. ![]() In our line of work, we talk to nonprofit leaders every day that are making career moves. Some are entering executive leadership roles for the first time after putting in their time on boards or in mid-level managerial roles. Some are seasoned nonprofit leaders that are making lateral moves from the helm of one organization to another. Some are coming over from executive leadership roles in industry to the nonprofit sector. But regardless of where they’re coming from, they enter the role bright-faced and optimistic about their future with the organization. They are excited, ambitious, and ready to succeed! There’s just one problem... They can’t succeed alone! Every new Executive Director placement brings an individual with a unique set of skills and experiences into an organization with unique needs and goals. To effectively unite the two, the organization’s board and existing leadership team needs to provide their new ED with everything that they need to find success. ![]() Are you ready to unlock your nonprofit’s potential and preserve its future? If so, you need to create a formal succession plan to guide its future regardless of who is at the helm! When you need to improve your planning or want to be better prepared for a leadership transition, use our Guide to Nonprofit Succession Planning! Remember, the most successful nonprofits that have a longstanding impact on their communities are the ones that address the elephant in the room – your leadership won’t be around forever! The sooner your organization comes to terms with that, the better prepared you will be when that someday becomes today.
These are the kinds of questions that succession planning can answer in advance. However. Most organizations simply do not have effective succession planning efforts in place before they need them. Even among organizations that have taken the time to put together a succession plan, it doesn’t always help them much when an unexpected situation arises because their plan falls short in scope.
The rationalizations for resisting actually doing succession planning range from, “Who am I to tell future leaders who to pick?” to “I should wait to do this until I am closer to leaving.” Often times it starts to sound more like a discussion about wills and death.
But, regardless of the response when the subject is broached, effective succession nonprofit planning is crucial for an organization to maintain its focus and purpose regardless of who is leading. Nonprofits accumulate valuable institutional knowledge and expertise over time. A well-executed succession plan helps create a transfer of knowledge from outgoing leaders to their successors, preventing the loss of critical information and experience needed to keep the organization serving its key audiences. For this reason, it is always a worthwhile endeavor for nonprofit leadership to plan for the future no matter what stage of their career they are in or what is going on within the organization!
The article below from Liz Swanson expands on that topic, drawing from a workshop she recently led to help provide a framework on how to leave your leadership role. Get ready to enjoy her insights! A question for you: Imagine tomorrow you go into the office and announce you are retiring in 4 weeks. What is the biggest issue your board must consider?
The most shocking part about that excerpt is that the article was written in January of 2020. This goes to show that rapid change in the nonprofit space was happening long before the pandemic hit. And in today’s post-COVID world, change has only accelerated further.
In fact, recent research from Ernst & Young in collaboration with Oxford University indicates that 85% of senior leaders have been involved in two or more major organizational transformations over the last 5 years, with 67% of those surveyed indicating that at least one of the transformations they have been a part of has underperformed relative to expectations. |
THE LATEST FROM VALTAS
You are welcome to subscribe to get the latest news, updates and insights from our team. Subscribe:Ask Valtas!Categories
All
Archives
February 2025
|